There is a growing rift in Maltese society between those who are accepted by the law as normal citizens and who must be punished accordingly if they break it, and those who are considered of a privileged nature and thus must be dealt differently from the others. The former is usually the simple and blue collar crime and gets caught easily when the police forces lunch their search operations. But the latter is a phenomenon which the media have always ignored due to its interest to hide the mischievous truths of its patrons. Yes, mainstream journalists have most of them failed to research properly white-collar crimes for the simple reason not to defame and not to enter in any 'libellous' situations.




One can trace white-collar crime back to the beginning of Maltese statehood but one very common figure of this scene was Lorry Sant who gave ludicrous permits for construction sites and buildings related to his contacts and riches. Nowadays white-collar crime is not just revolving around one powerful person in one particular department but nowadays white-collar crime has infiltrated the courts, parliament and most of state institutions. This growing phenomenon have created a privileged class which has protection from the police and the media and an amicable attitude with the courts and magistrates. Thus it is impossible to be prosecuted for its crimes.




The very most recent case is that of Orlando-Pullicino. What a miserable courtly institution does this state has when it does not take to court from all of the defendants, the main exponent of case? Pullicino-Orlando was the individual who was mainly responsible for the Mistra case because the land was his - but such a common sense is nowadays lacking in Malta especially in the courts. We can be consoled if we hear about cases were individuals did not know what was being developed on their own land, but land being precious and scarce, is a thing which everyone cherishes and just stating in the mainstream media that 'I just didn't know about this project' is sheer lies. It is the same attitude when a Maltese does something intentionally wrong and says 'iii skuzani qas kont naf!' Do we really need to be that simple to describe such events? Well we actually need to, because the mainstream media has failed in all its aspects to report such issues with an objective method. This case shouldn't be viewed as a story which the MLP has brought up for defamation and the NP put itself on the defensive to keep its reputation. This case is a mesmerizing crime which should leave every citizen deeply ashamed for the petty-caresses that Orlando was given by the state authorities and the inability of the media to report these petty-caresses, and the way Orlando was glutted out of any criminal accusations. The fact that Orland has been freed proves the fact that Maltese courts are refuting to prosecute any high-state official in this country, thus creating a class of individuals who can do whatever they want at the expense of the taxpayer.




What is more surprising that nowadays whole institutions can implement criminal deeds collectively and are of course, privileged and not liable fro criminal prosecution. We are now talking about MEPA. When Gonzi says that no permits should be done in the ODZ scheme, and MEPA approves projects in ODZ areas that is a crime because it is going against the regulations of construction and development which MEPA has made for itself. When an institution is malfunctional in such a wide-scale the a problem arises: that MEPA is acting out of the interest of developers and at the expense of the taxpayer. Again MEPA is untouchable. All the misdeeds that MEPA have been doing are being ignored both by the minister of the Environment, the prime-minister and the local courts. But as long as developers fund political-parties in their campaigns it would be fine for MEPA to abuse of the natural environment at the expense of investment developers. If Albert Mizzi builds those 98 bungalows at Mellieha (which MEPA has for now gave the permit) it will be a huge crime liable to be prosecuted in court as it is a development which goes against the ODZ law. Until now, even though the illegality has happened and the permit has been given, Albert Mizzi was not prosecuted in court and MEPA keeps working out how its developer clients can get more money.



Amidst all this chaos in which we are currently in, one can easily remember how the police force are getting away with all their violent acts and thus adding to this miserable situation of no discipline in this society. The officer who last year hit the old French women in St. Julians was freed with no prison term because he had given in his life a very good contribution to the police corps. As a law student one should be baffled to read such statement because criminal acts are never forgiven by the work one individuals dose to society. It seems that workers who have spent their lives working will be acquitted of their criminal offences due to their healthy contribution to society with their work but in fact it is only police officers who will be acquitted because they are of course privileged than other workers. The recent Azzopardi case is also a great black hole in this chaos we are talking about. The police corps had a man killed under their own custody and no investigation was properly done to discover weather he died out of a suicide or was brutally killed. It is of course obvious that no investigation was properly done to protect the reputation of the corps and to have no officer thrown in jail for murder. The problem is that violent acts by the police are many but only a very small minority of them are reported in the media.




Nevertheless the police corps and the apathetic magistrates of the courts are useful to keep this privileged class of corrupt white-collar criminals alive and kicking. Thus the police force will never be disciplined to actively protect us citizens and serve society as a whole, but will only be there to simply to throw in jail drug users (the majority of prison inmates are serving sentences on drugs) and make a show of force out of them all. When a society lacks a debate on the functions and roles of its institutions than a crises has jumped on the shoulders of the masses, that crises which leaves institutions unhindered to do all their dirty work. A crises of free speech, authoritarianism and disinformation.